Name: Asparagus Tips Salad
Ingredients: Asparagus tips; Lettuce leaves; ½ tablespoon olive oil; ½ tablespoon vinegar; ½ tablespoon lemon juice; 1 teaspoon salt; Pinch of sugar (optional); Paprika (to taste)

Why it works: Asparagus and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Asparagus Tips Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Arrange asparagus tips like a log cabin on a lettuce leaf.
In a bowl, mix olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and sugar if desired.
Drizzle the dressing over the asparagus and season with paprika to taste.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together313 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lettuce + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,580 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Asparagus + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together704 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Asparagus + olivetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,096 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,922 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Asparagus tips: Provide the main body and fresh, tender texture of the salad.
Olive oil: Adds fat and smooth mouthfeel to the dressing and carries flavour.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.
Lemon juice: Adds extra acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the dressing.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (asparagus, lettuce, olive, vinegar, sugar):

Avocadofits better
Cherryfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against asparagus, lettuce, olive, vinegar, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.